Cracking from the Blogosphere Pressure

When the lazy days of summer begin more than the grass turns dry at my house.  It is as if all my creativity goes out the window.  As a freelancer, work always seems to slow down this time of year.  I begin to fret about my projects more than normal as I finish them.  What will I do next?  How much income will come in next month?  Have I really played outside that long today with my kids instead of job hunting or brewing up new ideas?  Do I keep the regular sitter or cut back her hours? 

I become riddled with doubt.  Fear sits like a block of ice in the pit of my stomach and my brain whirs away almost 24/7 spinning out ideas and thoughts about what I should do next.   This fear and doubt sprial keeps me up at night and I hate it.  When you work within the blogosphere it seems that every click shows another great project that you just missed out on.  Everyone around you is buzzing with book deals, sponsorships and more.  It's amazing this thing that we bloggers have created and I love it.  However, it is highly competitive and to continuously feel like you are looking for work and are up against some of the smartest, funniest women you could ever meet is a bit draining at times.  It can be incredibly disheartening too for someone who feels that the sun has bleached her brain into inactivity. 

I look outside my window and see the sun heating up my deck and all I want to do is call it a day at nine in the morning instead of trolling the job sites and talking up my contacts.   But in this fast pace, always changing world that is the blogosphere I sometimes find it hard to just cut the Twitter cord, dial back from blogger and go a few hours being blissfully free from the world wide web.  What if I miss something?  What if the perfect job is poof! gone in seconds like it always seems to be.  What if I don't make my web presence known enough today and tomorrow I'm out of work?  It's enough to drive a girl to drink.  Which I hear we bloggers do. Heh. 

Don't get me wrong.  I love what this field has given me.  It's a blessing to be sure.  Yet sometimes I feel like I'm just going to crack from the pressure of being 'on' online all the time and continuously being plugged in and branding myself.  Sometimes the world beyond my laptop needs to be more than a blur. 

Original DC Metro Moms post.  Victoria blogs about this insane thing called blogging and more at The Mummy Chronicles and her review site, Mummy's Product Reviews.